Many traumatic or disease related musculoskeletal and neurological disorders present, among other signs, deficiencies in equilibrium and righting reactions, as well as inadequate total body and/or segmental sensory-motor control. Orthopedic rehabilitation following trauma, corrective surgery or limb amputation has traditionally recognized that regaining muscle strength and endurance without proper balance responses does not constitute optimal recovery of functions. The recurrent falls of elderly subjects is well documented, including resulting injuries, suffering and high cost. Balance reaction has been one of the recognized factors contributing to such falls.
Numerous neurological disorders including Parkinsonism, cerebral vascular accident (CVA), head trauma, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Cerebral Palsy (CP) may not only severely affect standing balance, but profoundly interfere with equilibrium response in sitting, quadruped and even recumbent posture. Clinicians routinely estimate the severity of balance dysfunction and provide various treatment techniques to improve the patient's balance control in all the aforementioned postures.
Traditionally, balance and motor control improvement or lack of it has only been estimated through visual observation of the patient performance. Whereas such methods are readily available, they are subjective, inconsistent and can detect only very marked changes in balance responses. Without a precise, sensitive and reliable testing method, treatment procedures to improve balance deficiencies are much less effective and efficient than is desirable.
There is, accordingly, a clear need for a system which can overcome these clinical disadvantages by quantitatively documenting objectively, accurately and reliably in a very short time the deficiencies of balance responses and motor control functions of various body postures of human subjects. Further, there is a need for a system which can be programmed to train the subject to overcome postural and neuromuscular disturbances by gradually increasing the demand for balance response, motor control and recovery time in various postures and directions, with accompanying facility in re-testing the patient's progress during each session or as needed.